More than 27 million UK watched a total of 3.2 billion videos online in June 2008, new research has revealed. The boom in internet video shows that Google-owned websites, such as YouTube dominated viewing time, accounting for nearly half of all online video watched, according to internet traffic monitoring company Comscore.

The firm says that the figures revealed that each internet user who watched videos averaged nearly 118 video clips per person – more than internet users in the US, Canada, France and Germany.

While Google-owned sites such as YouTube led the charge, BBC-owned websites claimed second place. Online BBC content accounted for nearly six million viewers in June 2008, with each site visitor watching an average of nearly eight videos.

The research found that the average video clip watched in the UK online is around three minutes long – and that the combined online video viewing audience in the UK watched a total of 161 million hours of video content.

Comscore also found that 4.2 UK mobile phone users used their phone to watch TV or video on the move.

“Internet video is experiencing a real jump in popularity as people use it as a chance to catch-up on missed TV programmes or watch short video clips,” says Which? technology editor Matthew Bath. “It’s worth keeping an eye on the amount of data you are downloading when watching internet video, especially if your broadband service provider places financial penalties if you go over your agreed data download limits.”